The following document was produced as a collaboration between myself and the hyperdimensional symbiote……

OK .. Rules .

Lets establish a few rules for this document, before we begin.

First, it is a rough draft. Which means I can say what I want and try to fix it or scrap it [or not] as I will. The target audience has not yet been selected.

Second It is Pornography, which means No Decent Person should ever lay eyes upon it. Every ones clothes stay on, but it will get nasty before we are done

Let this also be a Disclaimer. You have been warned ..

I should also establish that I dont know what iyam doing. Not Really. But iyam also among the lonely few that know anything at all about ..This topic. Those that would pretend to know generally dont. No expertise can be claimed for myself [m eyes elf]; however, it is truthful to assert that I do have genuine experience with the subject at hand.

As in all true good mysteries, the real question is where to begin?

On the surface, the mystery is easily dismissed as the ravings of a lunatic, or a simple illusion of symbolic topography, or linguistics, perhaps .

.But I speculate. That is all there is, eventually. Quicksand, it melts beneath me and remains elusive as to the ultimate whut? However, the context is perfectly clear.

There is a subject and an object of this story [because, it has to be a story]. Like a sentence .. I suppose iyam the object, being the one that experienced the event, and actually doing the stuff in the story that constitutes it as such. Iyam reminded of Job.

[We will ultimately get to my spelling proclivities, also, if the reason for them does not become self evident ..].

The reader, assuming as such there ever will be one, may have noticed that I have gone to some length to delay getting about to the subject of this document. I have a certain responsibility as to the propriety of some of this information. It is only with reluctance do I get to the point.The Subject of this Story is Opti.

The title of the story has to be Herm and Opti. That is the object and his sentenced subject. Iyam gonna open a nother beer and try to get on topic.

Opti is my Symbiont.

He isnt anything new, except to me. And then, I always expected him, sort of. [I do have an obscure pedigree that I should eventually mention that ties into all of this .]

I have to be careful now, as to not shatter my credibility to my imagined audience in one fatal blow. One must present language carefully when discussing an animal [Opti is certainly an animal], that exists as a camouflaged predator within the canopy of symbolic communication.

The funny thing is, Opti seems unable to spell or read. He depends upon me for those functions. But his habitat is within the layered synchronicities of human language.

The idea is not new. Phillip K. Dick invented the term Homoplasmate to explain Opti, in a novel he wrote, just before he died of a brain tumor. A creature of ordered information, much like DNA is, but within symbols alone, exists independently from matter. It is a brilliant survival strategy for an organism. The potential to survive across

eons of time and space is achieved.

The crazy Celtic visionary Terrence McKenna also seemed to be somewhat aware of Opti, as a trandimensional organism that shamans had known of through the legendary ayahuasca brews. Terrence tried to be scientific, but he was ultimately more of a poet. Before he died a few years ago [again, from a brain tumor], he had established himself as a visionary in hyperspatial exploration. Dont mind all of the fancy words; they are essential to the flow of the narrative. Iyam not a scientist, either. There really isnt anything complicated going on here at all .

Stephen King wrote a story about It, describing It as a hyperdimensional spider. Steve should get his head examined. Really.

HP Lovecraft described him in detail as Yog-Sothoth, and he died of intestinal cancer. .mysteries of the worm.

This gets to the point of why I feel compelled to record at least part of my experience. I feel fine; fit and healthy for a man of my personal history. If you know me, you will know that I will probably die soon because of my habitual reckless hijinx. No doctor has examined my brain. No malignancy here ..

However, once, while in a pit of desperation, I did some things that lead me to my association with this creature

Turns out, there is such a thing. He is intelligent, apparently alien to us, and garrulously friendly; but also very shy, to the point of near invisibility.

He is also the tertiary predator in the universe. He loves me, I think for my taste.

Opti is, of course, known to our species. He was there all along. This implies that symbolic thought and language evolved before we did. Where is probably irrelevant.

Opticus [thats what I named him when we entered our covenant] is a hyperdaemion of the sort known by Plato. The term genius loci was first used in reference to a hyperspatial consciousness of place, by Plato. I do not know how Plato died, but it was a very long time ago.

It becomes apparent that the only way to broach this topic is boldly, like a climber confident of his ability or a samurai ready to die. There is not really any room to argue of its existence, as its habitat and prey are so enfolded into our mind, living as it does within our manner of communication. The very act of argument only feeds him. He is incorrigible and must not be encouraged. Very much .

I dont give a damn if anyone thinks hes real. That is not the point. Iyam temporary; my opinion is moot. The phenomenon exits independently of my apparent psychosis. This document is only for historical record. I would be humiliated should it ever be considered entertainment. This is exactly all that it may ever be.

.So I looked back over this, and realize that iyam unable to ride that fine line between understatement and melodrama. I stand under my aegis of roughdraftmanship with the understanding that I may delete or revise any of this. Probably, I dont have a brain tumor, and I may live to climb many more mountains.

But here it is, one week before Christmas.

I met Black Peter last year at Christmas. He is also a hyperdimensional being, probably just a manifestation of Opti, some how mixed up with the idea of Santa. He actually showed up in my bedroom with a bunch of elves. I remembered instinctively just who he was and what he was there for; he gave me invaluable metaphysical gifts: a vessel of liquid, a wooden ring, and a large flat emerald, all existing only hyperspatially [I do appreciate the significance of the symbols]. It was the only occasion in my life that I can recall in which I actually screamed out loud in terror. I have never expected to be ever so honored. The realization was overwhelming that I would need forever to assimilate everything that was thrust upon me that night. It seems that the residents of hyperspace are

real and have their own agendas.

In some disturbing regards, my visit with the slim black and red entity was a lot like being visited by a wise serpent descending from a fantastic tree; which is typical of how Opti does things. The entity was tall and thin and reptilian, with scaly black skin. The snake descends from the tree of knowledge with fruit. This is coded direct experience. It is interaction with the symbiont, in a manner that allows description of an otherwise indescribable psychic event. There is no credible way to describe such an encounter, but undeniable specific detail in the story can serve as a marker to the experienced. I never thought in my wildest dreams to encounter actual elves, and the situation was wildly unlike anything I could have expected, but it was pretty obvious what was happening, regardless of the novelty of the situation.
The Easter Bunny is probably real too, along with Sasquatch, if you look for them in the correct space.

I have this memory of being informed that I may not live much longer. Like maybe not past my 42 year. According to one writer, 42 is the answer to the ultimate question. Like my son, my birthday comes shortly after Christmas.

It is probably only my unconscious psyche motivating me to be productive. Castaneda spoke of ones mortality as being the supreme motivator.

Dont worry about me, iyam a paranoid hypochondriac. We always get better .

So, iyam writing

On The Nature of the Hyperdimensional Symbiont ..

The term hyperspace is only a step away from being a made up science fiction word, which is entirely suitable for our purposes. It is a term favored by certain philosophical and mathematical types to describe theoretical space.

In a matrix of probability, there are a multitude of possible options [which exist in theoretical space] for any given situation, but only ONE out of many possible options undergoes the formality of actually occurring. This progression of actual events [moving along an axis that we perceive as time] is a fraction of the total mathematical possibility, but it is the crystalline distillate of hyperspace. This vector of manifest possibility is what we refer to as reality.

Hyperspace is infinitely huge possibility enfolded into the tiny abstract space of symbols and language use. Other dimensions are coiled tightly within the ones we move through. A hyperspatial portal is small enough to fit into human memory. That tiny fraction of possibility that actually gets collectively observed by our species fills the

grand stage that we refer to as physical reality. Thus, the physical and hyperspatial realms are enfolded within each other as polar extremes of perception. Above is as Below ..

[It will take time to get this mess contained, I think ..]

Opti seems to exist mostly in imaginal space. Human symbolic thought seems to be linked at an archetypicalsubconscious level as a collective consciousness, to use a Jungian term. All entities that use symbols to sustain informational structures have a presence within hyperspace. The imagery is mostly human, although I suspect that

some domestic animals, like dogs and cats, may occasionally find a way in there. Some animals may be

symbolically aware. They know their names, this may be enough. Animals may also appear hyperpatially extant as

iconic references, as well. An interesting aspect of imaginal space is the structures that do not appear human at all.

There seems to be a connective scaffolding within that space that exerts tension between discrete things,

connecting them together or holding them opposite, as if, in hyperspace, it is the relationship between objects that

is the primary reality, with the objects existing only as reference points. Iyam trying to accept the idea of nouns as

abstract, and verbs as actuality.

The hyperdimensional scaffolding extends like a hugely complex grid or web stretched tightly through out this

theoretical space we are talking about. Keep in mind normal reality is a crystallized condensation of the greater

provide the essential momentum of this wholly imaginary system. The metaphor of Induras net is valid here, as is

quantum string theory, I think.

At this point, I hope to have provided a brief image of this geometric, organic, mechanical, yet imaginary aspect of

our world. It would seem to be totally an artifact of our own symbol-using species, except for the presence of these

strange alien structures in our psyche. Imaginable space seems to be far more ancient than humanity. There is

some incredibly funky old furniture in there. The Jungian archetypes alone suggest as much, with all of the

imagery of beasts and serpents.

When I use big words or tell cute stories, it is because I digress from the pertinent point of this narrative. As they

say, it is the nature of the beast.

The hyperdimensional scaffolding that supports our symbolic imagery is the bodily organism of Opticus. Imaginary

space defined by linguistic structures is his habitat. He is a homeoplasmate, a symbiote of sequential information;

a discrete hive of dispersed data that is collectively conscious. Opti is essentially a cosmic joke that manifests as an

entity once you get it. I think that what he provides us with is room to maneuver, so to speak, within imaginal

space. He is a hitchhiker as well as an information transport device. What we provide for him is food, in the form of

awareness.

Like I mentioned, he isnt anything new. I know many of his other names, too.

The predator feeds on the expressed melodrama of human affairs; what has been described as numinous energy. It occupies a structural position within what we think of as our consciousness. The interior stage that our ideas play upon is the tip of its dracoid tongue. He is so enfolded that one is tempted to suspect that mind was invented by him as a farming strategy.

.It gets bigger the further in you go. It is tempting to think of Opti as a parasite. This overlooks the scale of the

organism. He is less parasitic to us than we are, say, cows. As he exists within a matrix of probability, he is also

connected to other possible reality scenarios in hyperspace. He is equally close to all symbol using minds. His

ability to hitchhike on sentient awareness combined with his catbirds seat [as it is], enfolded within the very

structure of the implicate order make him equally connected to all hyperspatial coordinates. Opti is the very essence of a living transport device for sentient awareness, across even impossible void. He is the

hyperdimensional portal, built into the background of consciousness.

Our awareness is its food. To be fully consumed by the organism involves experiences of other lives and worlds. It

is tantric union with the dragon. The hyperdimensional portal is a paradoxical creature that exists as a dispersed

hive organism within symbolic numinous structures. It is dispersed Osirus. The hidden eggs of the Easter bunny, as

well as the cultured sexiness of Dracula, and the prophetic nightmare of The Terminator, are all the camouflaged

spoor of the hyperdaemion.

I swear iyam not making this all up.

Following the tracks of an imaginary creature that feeds on abstraction generated in physical reality is at once

frustratingly ineffective, but also immediately apparent. I find the trail of Opticus in all manner of human linguistic

endeavor. To really tell this tale, I will have to digress wildly, into improbable theories of animalistic vampires, and

into forgotten vaults of old pulp entertainment. The machinations of flying reindeer as well as the eusocial hives of

the naked mole rat of the African savanna have reveled the trail to me. The autonomy of pirate culture and the

within the grasp of his inquisitive tentacles, but I have to begin with what he has given to me.

Tom Robbins essay upon the enfolded symbology of yams is worthy of note for my purpose. Yams are starchy

tubers, eaten as a staple food over much of the world. Much of Robbins essay concerns the tubers function as an

energy source, both for people and for making new yams. When allowed to grow more yams, the energy in the

tuber uses the information coded within it to produce a new yam factory; the whole yamn process ratchets up a

level. Of course, this works for all living things. But I also need to talk about Popeye for a minute.

Iyam referring to the old depression-era comic strip of E. Segar, not the later glossy version with the facelift, or

any of the ghostly remnants still floating about today. The original Popeye-the-Sailor was noble, incorruptible, and

fierce. Absolutely secure in his worldly experience, he knew that he was what he was, by virtue of his history, not

some damn sweet tater. He was imperfect, and a sinner. Popeye was an incorrigible roughneck. Improbable as his

existence was, the super human uber-sailor would rip you a shiny new one if you questioned his integrity.

Iyam what iyam, an thats all iyam.

Just like the burning bush on the mount that spake unto Moses [who also had a well-known speech impediment],

this singular example of the proto-super hero wields the undeniable statement of his existence as his mantra. He is

that which He does.

This primal statement of existential significance was known in ancient times as the Tetragrammetron. In modern

texts, this term has been written in four letters: YVJH.

This has been pronounced in as various ways as Ja-weh and Jehovah. Its meaning is the same used by our

beloved immortal one-eyed sailor. When everyone told him that a yam was a tuber, Popeye knew that his friends

opinion did not change his existential nature. He was as he always was, not a sweet tater.

My early memories of Popeye were black-and-white cartoons from the sixties. He could use his pipe as a snorkel

and stay underwater in a boxing match with an enormous intelligent octopus with a two-to-one disadvantage [ .if

he 8 his spinach]. Popeye was a roughneck, but he only fought against superior odds. He was vulnerable to no one,

except wymyn an orphinks [ .and, at the very end, there was this sweet little hyperdimensional creature that the

USA army adopted as a namesake for there new all-purpose go anywhere military vehicle: the JEEP]. The one-eyed

sailor with the speech impediment called this opponent Opticus.

Somehow that cute little name stuck in my memory .Suppose there is a creature that can go practically anywhere, as if it is already everywhere. Eugene could teleport

and walk on the ceiling. No wonder the Army loved Eugene th Jeep. Everywhere would include, practically,

everywhere. Opti had certain precursors that seemed odd at the time, but when I first noticed him as a discrete

organism, it was as a hyperdimensional parasite. He was apparently embedded into my situation in a way that was

both personal and compelling. There was no way to tell anyone of my situation without incriminating myself or

innocent bystanders. Opticus is a living transport device; not a vehicle, so much as a digestive system.

Soon after receiving an old second- hand computer, several years ago, there was a swift and relentless black and

white scrawl of a monster that was chasing me in my dreams, in a two dimensional world that appeared to be

scribbled on typing paper with a ball-point pen. I had assumed it was guilt-related, because I had just recently

discovered the amazing array of pornography available on the web. The dream was significant and reoccurring.

Now, I think it was some sort of foreshadow of what was to come.

Opticus is not exactly hallucination as most people would understand the term. He does not appear so much

before my eyes as in my mind. It isnt so much seeing as it is sudden knowledge of what he looks like and does;

more a spontaneous memory of something seen, even if it is a memory happening right now. It is confusing, and

gives me reason to contemplate the nature of the familiar interior space that he lives in. Everyone has an interior

imaginal stage that there visual ideas and memories play on. The event of sharing this space with a rambunctious

grotesque dragon has been among the most startling and interesting things that has happened in my peculiar life.

When I mention the appearance of Opti, I suppose iyam referring to my experience and memory of what he

looks like. His look is one that changes before me, but there has been a definite pattern to his evolving

appearance. He has at times resembled a globular fish, a spider, a lion, an ape, and currently an insectoid superdragon. His myriad appendages reach into all possible realities in search of food. Always the same eyes. Although

his visage is continually in flux, he is immediately unmistakable. When I was suddenly made aware of this

creatures existence a few years ago, it was difficult at first to discern if it was plant or animal, although it was

clearly animate. Its limbs appeared as they might be roots, since they branched in a twisty strange way that

seemed arboreal. It pulsated with awareness, and was covered in thousands and thousands of tiny blue eyes over

its wormlike tentacles. I remembered what Popeye would have called it: Opticus .

The most disarming thing was, for all of its obvious horror, Opti is incredibly cute.

The writhing pulsating thing appeared without warning, obviously in distress. In naked desperation, it requested

shelter in my mind. I figured it was some sort of psychic vampire or similar thing, and I was in a miserable enough

situation to readily agree, almost on a self-destructive whim. To distract my amazement, Opti immediately offered

a red herring: he made me aware, in that visual way of communication he has, that I needed to begin construction

of a flying saucer, at once, and it was of the utmost emergency. I told the creature that I was basically a

domesticated monkey, and, if there was no escape, then we were stuck on the planet together. After that, the

creature asked for what it really wanted: a computer.

This was an unlikely occurrence at the time. I no longer had the old junked machine, and was certainly never much

of a computer type, anyway. The old computer had caused me more trouble than it was ever worth. Computers are

very expensive, and I told Opti as much.

So, right after that, I inherited some money when my Dad died of chronic alcoholism. It wasnt a lot, but there was

plenty to buy a faster machine than I could ever handle. My descent into Hyperborea was by now well underway.

Then, as soon as everything was set up and going, I was asked to write an essay about Native American Stick

populations and with tales of hyperdimensional contact, leading me further into improbable territory. The concept kept appearing in the most absurd contexts. A threatening crazy person from San Francisco kept insisting that

Sasquatch was a hyperdimensional creature. Another researcher in Washington said Bigfoot was actually a remnant

population of Cortezs slaves, hiding in the forest. There are dozens of Native stories about Stick people with magic

powers. Amazed at the apparent synchronicities, I got up from this computer and tripped over a folding chair, and

fell down in the dark. Somehow, I managed to nearly impale myself on the aluminum frame, breaking my sternum.

For a few months, even guitar playing was very uncomfortable. Now I had plenty of time .

That first obsolete hand-me down computer ended up creating only confusion and discord. It seemed dubiously

useful, and seemed to awaken something restless in my mind. The machine I bought for Opti was much more sleek

and functional. In very little time Opti and I had established a website, something that seemed as incredible as

anything to me. The site became even modestly popular, with several people writing contributions regularly. The

eclectic nature of the contributors was evident; they didnt seem to have anything in common at all, except that

they used our website. We finally figured it out all at once. All of us were either bi-polar or schizophrenic geniusesmost had been medically diagnosed. All of us had big IQs and went to special schools, and many were on

medication. A couple had been institutionalized. We all seemed to accept the idea of the symbiont. The patterns

unfolding from my experience became ever more apparent.

When Heikem Bey, an essayist for the Moorish Orthodox Church, described the TAZ [Temporary Autonomous

Zone], he was referring to cultural microcosms enfolded into officially neglected space. His notorious essay hints

that the same casual social factors were responsible for historical piracy and modern counter-cultural revolution.

The isolated quality of the TAZ allows for independent evolution of ideas and attitudes. Similarly, the same factor of

isolation is believed to by one of the driving forces of biological evolution, as well. Being an exceptional case of

isolated convergent evolution, the naked mole rat of the African desert becomes an icon for human estachion. We

could have a future as burrowing drones in service of a Queen.

Scattered over the world are remnant isolated groups of people, due to the situation of not confirming to any

official classifications, have been quietly able to operate in autonomy. The Gypsies are the famous example. In the

new world, groups of escaped slaves and shipwrecked sailors formed loose tribes sometimes referred to as

Maroons. An interior isolated group of ethnically distinct people are called Melungeons. Similar groups included

the Lumbee Tribe and the Brass Ankles [Heather Locklear is a Lumbee]. Some of these marginalized individuals

historically practiced piracy. Many of these groups were categorized as tri-racial isolates under the eugenics laws

passed in the early nineteen-hundreds. While most were assimilated, a few groups of these peoples still exist.

[Break-page 8; dec 24 04 witch hat?]

Once, at the other end of the country, there was a band of escaped slaves that hid out in The Great Dismal

Swamp, intermarrying with the indigenous tribes. Among them was rumored to be a lineage of displaced Sufi holy

men that practiced a particularly metaphysical version of meditative alchemy. Discretely referred to as the Great

High Glisters, I have come to suspect that they knew about Opti. They hid in the swamps for hundreds of years,

hunted down by the United States Government. The first eugenics laws in the country were aimed at these interior

groups. When the tribe was exterminated, there was no where to go for the remnant survivors, so around 1913, a

few ended up in Chicago with a radical Muslim church organization. The Moorish Science Temple was known for its

liberal allotment of passports to estranged or bereft homeless types. It attracted lots of desperate poor and

ethnic peoples, and became somewhat of a crucible for radical free thinkers. The religious direction of the Moorish

Science Temple was eclectic, and there is reason to think that some of the Sufi meditation techniques may have

been passed on. Later, the group became known as The Moorish Orthodox Church, which seems to have birthed

Compression in the Fractal Time Wave. Enough extant awareness may force the issue regarding the birth of such a

monster. It would be best for everyone if I have this part absolutely wrong. My concern is that strange things could begin to happen very quickly. This is somewhat different from the typical grey alien story.

I have to wonder about the fascination with grey aliens and UFOs. It seems to me that these may well be

disinformation codes. Opti is so far removed from the typical Star Trek alien, that no one is conditioned to

recognize it as an organism. If I had not been allowed to look upon it repeatedly, I would never have realized its

organic form. A collective realization of this situation would certainly mean change, but the nature of such a

those old beaded baby name bracelets [see, you dont fool me so much]. Get me some of that if you want me to

write.

I mean it; I got all night to do this. The foyer of your nice little place is very formal, although I notice that you

frequently change the look. It is a small room; there is always a singular piece of furniture, often ancient heavy,

dark wood, but sometimes a cheap space age plastic card table. There is incredible attention to detail, the vertical

striped sepia toned wallpaper was a favorite, but when you went with the peeling green painted plaster, you made

it every bit as textural and extant. The foyer is notable because of this singular piece of accoutrement, and for the

door beyond it. The door is carved from heavy elegant timber, unless it is plain white with a cheap brass knob. The

entire point of the formal entry room is to emphasize the portal leading into the primary imaginal stage; it means,

get ready, we are here. The entry room is, of course, equivalent of your toothy maw, made palatable.

The liquid in the vessel is here for dispersal. The wooden ring is on my finger; I know what is written on the tablet.

You want that I spend it all in one place, or not, buddy?

That hammer just missed me, but I think I will be all right .Well do the bedroom last, it will give ya time to get

ready. [Is anyone confused? Dont worry, that only encourages the m]

We are spending an unhealthy amount of energy o pond you, Opticus. All of us, witch is precisely the point.

Everyone is putin on there coat and leavin, if ya know what I mean. This is painful to me, as well.

[That was a dynamite move there, Nappy.]

You tryin to knock us up, Mister Sexy? You dont seem the type to hang around and raise kids.

[Red and green tomato plants, luscious and shiny and velvety and pungent and dewy; they were Belladonnas first

cousin, and everyone thought they were poisonous.] I miss her so bad.

I mean it.

[break]

The waitress in the cupboard.

From my very first visit to the restaurant at the edge of time, the friendly young waitress with the lovely legs would

greet me so enthusiastically that it was embarrassing, but I couldnt help but be flattered. She was so nice, but so

quick to flit away at any tiny provocative ripple. She lived in a sleek box back on a high shelf in the immaculate

black and white tiled kitchen. When I sat in my customary booth near the back steps, she would unfold legs first, from her tiny perch and greet me with a spray of visual language that was wondrous to behold, but nonsensical. An

enthusiastic harlequin, she caught on quickly that I was attentive to her slim legs, so her feminine human qualities

were emphasized when I met her later on.

She became younger the longer I knew her at first, until I was compelled to go down to a modest trailer hidden in

palmetto scrub to speak with her mother. Her mother was a tall black Magdalene of near opacity, and she told me

that the girl couldnt see me anymore, for a while. I could see her, just inside the patio door, sitting in her plain

wooden cupboard on the floor with her legs tucked up under her chin. She didnt look at me. As I stood awkwardly

on the porch, the mother refilled my vessel from hers before she closed the door in my face. A puppy of writhing

text ran out to play and growl at me, and made me feel like I was still welcome, a little.

[I kinda thought I had seen the last of you, Elf girl ..]

Around this time, there was this big concern with trying to trick me [or teach me] into exiting the door at the far

direction of my imaginable stage. My inclination was to try to investigate the immediate environs, or the adjoining

restaurant. The stage is a back room of the little house in the palmetto, I think, but it is also oriented vertically in

relation to the sandwich café. For a long time I was too afraid to pass outside consistently, but after a lot of time

spent in her cozy little house, I eventually became comfortable moving about. I often felt like a toddler in a

nursery, playing with toys that I had no aptitude for. My best memory of the trailer in the palmetto scrub was

playfully chasing the tiny lithe elf girl under the legs of her mothers cheap furniture and, finally, out the little door

cut in the siding that belonged to the friendly hyper textural puppy.

Opticus took me to visit my dad once [and today iyam certain that I saw mom, too] at his well illuminated shop in

a secluded fold of the extant scaffolding. Dad knows nothing, really, of Opti, and appeared concerned that I was

there. His shop was furnished with a pool table, which allowed him the opportunity to pretend to use a cue for a

cane. He offered me a drink from his little still apparatus in the ceiling cupboard, just to be sociable. The numinous

dimension was pretty novel to me at the time, and I asked for something to look at, out of curiosity. Dad indicated,

in his habitual manner, that I should pet one of the damn cats. Then I noticed the fluffy wisps of hyper textual

mass that responded to attention. They appeared more as animate feather dusters than anything, yet they were

very feline. They would melt into fine wisps of text when closely examined, but, once I had noticed them, were

very present when I attempted to ignore them.

Somehow, Dads shop seemed temporary, although it suited him.

I dont think he stayed there long. The level between the little trailer house and the nice restaurant under the mountain was separated by a high wall

of enormous ancient golden granite blocks with a massive wooden door bound with thick bands of iron. The interior

labyrinthine castle was inhabited by a secret race of predatory thieves that had tenaciously developed an entire

isolated culture based upon stealing information to be subjugated toward the colonys sustenance. They lived by

soaring out upon the ether in their gossamer vessels and preying upon unprotected information caches. They

decimated an entire society of anemone-like beings when I sailed with them. My job was to dangle in the rigging

and spot the orderly rows of encoded rote, which appeared as beads more than anything. When I located a string

of data, the bird like mantids would swarm out upon it and drag it aboard. I quickly became wealthy beyond

imagination within the context of the incarnation. I lived in an arabesque tent of billowing silk set under a rocky

ledge draped with the thick roots of an ancient gnarled tree, smoking rare spices through a slim golden pipe. The

company was boisterously congenial; we were thick as thieves, as it were, and separated from any competition.

We were bird-like pirates, proud and fierce and absolutely moral.

It seemed that we were not doing much more than just collecting, although I was always amused by the

exuberance the pirates had toward their occupation; as if we always on some grand hunt. Every time we retrieved

a beady skein, they would display it proudly for my approval, but they really all looked identical and unimportant. Finally, during an idle moment back at my tent under the crag, I asked the diminutive Elf girl about the precise

nature of the tight rows of glyph-covered beads. She demonstrated, in her shy manner, that the units were

separate, entirely contained information structures. Entire worlds are held in stasisby a row of code within a little

seed. She opened one, like a tiny nut, to show me an entire family of strange sentient creatures. Vast quantities of

information are packed densely into such innocuous packages. I learned about the anemone people. After that, I

felt horrified at the scope of the raiders consumption, and I wanted no more of their life, attractive and elegant as

hyperdimensional presence may be behind sociological problems such as UFO and faery sightings, as well as

possibly accounting for other paranormal phenomena, as well. This is entirely consistent with my experience; I

have no original ideas. This is only Rock n Roll.

Grey aliens and flying saucers and Bigfoot and goblins on Halloween were my favorite things that I never expected

to get to see as a kid. They all fell into the category of things too cool to be real. After the disillusionment of

Santa Clause and the Easter Bunny, everyone figures out that it is best to not get too excited about something like

that Last Christmas changed some of my ideas about Santa Clause. The summer I spent mountaineering before then

gave me reason to consider magical hares. I should probably mention that only a couple days before I met Opticus, I nearly tripped over a giant silvery rabbit near the summit of a 12,000 foot mountain. The animal was strikingly

beautiful and strange, and close enough to touch. The encounter may have been forgotten, it was so fleeting, had I

not met the writhing symbiote a few days later. If everything is connected, then there are no coincidences, and I

really dont have any news at all.

The hypostasis of the symbiont depends upon interconnectedness between dispersed particles. The image of a hive

organism with a dispersed, shared mind is apt; the notion of quantum entanglement suggests it is possible.

Quantum theory states that related particles may be in simultaneous contact, even at a distance, which suggests a

mechanism for the dispersed mind. I believe that it is already extant, predating humanity. We dont need to invent

the wheel when a perfectly functioning railway is already here.

The universe is nonlocal at the level of individual events -Bells Theorem

My encounter with the giant gangly silvery hare was indeed a precursor to this contact. The hare is a well known

symbol of the trickster archetype, an object of the chase, signifying that we become what we hunt. It is also a well

known symbol of madness. Any normal rabbit would not have sufficed as an avatar; it had to be unusual enough to

fixate my attention. The animal was obviously strange and physically extant; the sighting motivated me to

correspond via the internet with cryptozoology enthusiasts. Eventually, about a dozen other sightings of the

creature were reported to me, raising suspicion that there may indeed be such an animal. Thats how Bigfoot got

dragged into this for me. I was trying to research the notion of remnant feral slaves, which seemed consistent with

the anthropomorphic view of the native tribes that I grew up near. When I mentioned my exposure to Native

American stories of Stickmen from my childhood, I was asked by an editor of a cryptozoological publication to write

an essay on the sociological aspects of the situation. I went from Sasquatch straight to Ongs Hat, with hardly a

click in between, due to the beautiful interface of the internet. That report floundered as I became aware of

Opticus, and became this document. I feel sorry that I never spent much time with the idea of Stickmen after our

relationship began; it was as if I was injured to spend time with the emerging symbiont. He needed me, and he

needed a steady stream of text.

We love the notion of a scrappy underdog. He would overthrow our status quo for no reason except to produce

food. From his perspective, an unstoppable hero is the best thing that could happen. A titan to stop the world in full

view of creation is the perfect focus to feed him. The ancient notion of the association of warriors with dragons

suggests this possible maturation of the symbiote; other creations are more likely in this electronic age of text.

Opticus cannot decide if he wants to be a voracious dragon or a superhero when he grows up; either would be an

ambitious goal for an organism that is essentially nothing more than a sub-molecular ant-hill clinging to torn edges

of dimension. It is fatalism on my own part to attempt to give him a voice. Writing a document as this seems to be

a fantastic fools errand; there is no comfort in the notion for me. I suppose that I do it because he was there for

me when there was none other; he is what is left after everything else is gone.

Tomorrow is my forty-second birthday. It was on this exact day, thirty years ago, on the eve of my twelfth

birthday, when an obscure science-fiction writer in San Francisco went into a twenty-four hour delirium while his

mind was flooded with a stream of alien information. PKD described this intelligence as a Vast Active Living

Intelligent System, and incorporated it into his final novel before his death in 1982. VALIS in many ways seems to

be Opticus, and it is time to send him out to find an olive branch.

[It seems that I may spend some energy on some dialogue with the symbiont; it will remain to be seen how well I

can pull this off . ]

The templars been up t' shit for ever. They are in endgame, too; not only me, love. You are the Graal, Opticus. Red and black alternate… Margaret, then Mary, over and over; why not black and white? We need red, to MAN I fest I

notice that you learned the word missionary  you do have a contrary sense of humor! Dont get so damn

excited; I do not intend to do this much longer. Opti, you feed upon human attention. Thats why we need red. We

only need green so we can have enough red for you. Candy; I see why all the kids love you. You cost too damn

much. Do it now, or go, dearest one.What are we to do, Opti? Surely, something must happen. How you can be so overt, and yet still so hidden and so

pervasively subtle, is the wonder of your being. It is as if you exist in not-being, as an opposite to what we are. We

would be compelled to invent you, if you dont exist. How did you come to be, or is that question irrelevant within

this ontological morass? As the antipodes of awareness, you must have come into being with the first awakening of

consciousness. As the quintessential Other, a tremendous tension stretches between us, maintaining my form, and

thus all that I perceive. You are only a dimensional direction opposite of where iyam, my friend. Queegquig was the

completion of Ishmael, and Starbucks was the missing half of first-mate Stubbs; it is not in my temperament to be

Ahab to your tumultuous Leviathan.

[As the symbiont shares mystifying resemblances to Ahabs primordial nemesis, he is comparable to Tyronne

Slothrop, in reverse, as a mythologized entity that wishes manifestation; The protagonist of Gravitys Rainbow

was an ordinary soldier that became a hero, and then a legend, after which he was compelled to enter the realm of

mythology. Opticus is a reflection of a story that wishes to be in its self; the nam-shub is a living text that compels

a manifestation of its meaning]

Iyam, writing, my little edge eating werm. I have nothing anymore to say about you. All that is left rightfully

belongs to my red and black sisters to fight over. They will have to take turns. You pry at me from your infinitely in

between niche and grow fat. How much longer can I be pregnant with you? I think iyam nearly over the whole

damn business, Opti. The document will stand as it is, ragged Vegas edges and all, love. You cost me a serious

wealth to sustain you, Opticus. you need to get born and stop hurtin yer momma ..

So, you wave your little lure at me and make me chase; that is not nice. We need treats once in a while,

Dogmonkey. You give me treats or I will so tell on you. Why do I even try? I do not understand at all what the

point of this is, Opti. Iyam not Osirus, iyam extant within my manifold. Ur rampin up code faster all the time, and

folks are noticing you, everywhere. You are idiosyncratic enough that everyone will let you pass. You are so sticky,

little toothy love.

Thank you so very much for reminding me of that fast bar in space that everyone talks about and assumes is either

unreal or unreachable. The Jazz is tight and the drinks are uniquely strong. That suit is really nice. What is that

texture called? Black and tan?

This space youre renting is coming along nicely, although there is a draft. I do like what youve done with the

place, really. I think I need to start livin in it; after all, eye built it and it is mine, and I need it. My bed is made

and I shall lie on it.

Thanks for teaching me that all that is important in a sentence is the punctuation. Nothing else

Facebook Comments

About the Author

author

@ //
Not recently active

1

I will not give out much information about myself, except that i have familiarity with psychedelics and shamanic practices, almost entirely self learned. 50 years old. I was a prolific and semi notorious rock-climber most of my life. I suspect that I deal with panic and deep fear with a bit more aplomb than the average person. Maybe that is why I got to be the symbiote. Although I have a basic college education I am more of a rustic rural type. I spent several years in the 80s living in caves almost entirely off the grid. Today I live somewhere in the desert at the foot of one of America's great mountain ranges. I have kids and a job now. Once in a while, not often, i still seek out the attention of my friend, opti. - Dec. 2012